ITC Wills Lifestyle: Increasing the Style Quotient

Wills Lifestyle is associated with some of the best-known styling icons from

the world of Indian fashion, a bollywood heartthrob, a fashion show embellished

with the brightest designers, and a flare for dressing-you-to-kill with its

exclusive and premium evening, formal and casual range of clothing. However,

Wills Lifestyle is doing all this and more, adding technology to its mix of

style and branding. The ITC Lifestyle Retailing Business Division (LRBD) has

implemented RFID with the aim of improving customer experience and increasing

supply chain efficiency.

Talking on the suitability of RFID in the lifestyle retailing business, OP

Bansal, divisional CIO, ITC LRBD, explains that the apparel industry is

characterized by short product life cycles, tremendous product variety, volatile

and unpredictable demand, and long and inflexible supply processes. These

characteristics, a complex supply chain and wide availability of data, make the

industry a suitable avenue for efficient supply chain management practices.

With traditional practices, companies cannot crunch the timelines beyond a

certain extent. Responsiveness to the trends of customer demand is the key

driver in the lifestyle retailing business, which comes from speed of operations

and velocity with which inventory moves. RFID is poised to bring about a similar

kind of revolution, that bar-coding brought into the then contemporary supply

chain practices couple of decades ago, adds Bansal.

Beginning the Process



The process started in April 2007 when the printing of tags and tagging of

merchandize at manufacturing locations began. Subsequently, the two regional

distribution centers (RDCs) began using RFID by June 2007. With the launch of

the Autumn-Winter 07 collection, the Wills Lifestyle Store at the Metropolitan

Mall in Gurgaon became the first store to be enabled for billing through RFID.

As of now, we plan to use RFID for only Wills Lifestyle store and not extended

it to John Players. We plan to cover all Wills stores in the NCR in the initial

phase of implementation, says Bansal.

Partnering ITC LRBD for the successful implementation of RFID is ITC Infotech,

the wholly owned subsidiary of ITC. ITC Infotechs retail vertical provided

end-to-end RFID integration, software development and personnel training of RFID

technologies and to-be process along with performing the project management

role. M/s Barcode India, Motorola, Intermac and Zebra provide hardware and

infrastructure for the project. The implementation was carried out in a phased

manner namely, technology study and proof-of-concept, as-in process analysis and

identification of pain points, pilot study and analysis, hardware ordering and

software development, and supply chain integration. The implementation took 10

months and the staff across RDCs and stores was briefed about the RFID

initiative and their inputs were taken into consideration during the

experimental stage, followed by training on the technology.

ITC LRBDs RFID Project Team: (L-R) Sandeep Wadhwa, head, Logistics; Amit Chopra, manager, Retail Operations; Anurag Garg, manager, Process Quality; OP Bansal, Divisional CIO; Paritosh Jain, head, Retail Operations; Anuj Sharma, manager, Logistics; and Ramakant Sahu, IT Application Support Executive

The ambit of RFID implementation also included aligning and modifying

existing systems to accommodate new technology. Through careful planning and

knowledge base provided by the retail team of ITC Infotech, RFID processes were

aligned with existing processes without significant changes, adds Bansal.

However, inclusion of hardware such as readers, antennae, and tunnel-conveyor

system; software for the pertinent use of hardware; and tagging were mandated

steps. The tags are printed at two locations and are attached at 20 outsourced

manufacturing vendors and one dedicated conversion facility in Bangalore.

Logistics of the Wills Lifestyle business, including RFID-based in-warding and

out-warding is being managed at its two distribution centers at Mandoli in Delhi

and Hosekote in Bangalore. The cost of a tag is Rs 5-10 and the team expects a

substantial reduction in prices.

The biggest hurdle for ITC LRBD was prohibitive tag prices that would further

bear recurring costs because of its non-reusability at an item level. Though

the possibility of reusing RFID tags was also evaluated, it was not practical

due to the logistics involved in tags retrieval and correct attachment on

repetitive basis. Also there was lack of a solution where item information being

printed on the RFID today, can be reprinted with regard to the new garment to

which it is reattached, says Bansal. That was not the only issue. Appropriate

technology selection, HF or UHF and the danger of hardware being obsolete within

few years were other risks facing the team. After a complete assessment, it was

decided to adopt UHF because of factors like low cost of RFID tags and hardware,

higher response time, and the general industry focus on UHF.

Visible Changes



Like the West, basing RFID implementation on the hope that the technology

will overcome labor crunch and in turn cut down on mammoth labor costs would not

make a viable business sense in a geography where labor comes cheap. Realizing

this fundamental difference before implementing an expensive technology like

RFID, ITC LRBD, set out to increase efficiency per manpower as its main

objective, and subsequently improve customer service, supply chain efficiencies

and improve inventory velocity enabling lesser stock out situations. With RFID,

ITC LRBD has been able to handle increased scale of operations, witnessed

increased warehouse efficiency, reduced physical handling of garments,

elimination of manual scanning and thus, high accuracy.

RFID implementation does not necessarily mean departure from bar codes.

Though ITC is aggressive on RFID, as of now, it does not intend to do away with

the barcodes completely. According to Bansal, Although RFID is an enabling

technology, it may not completely replace barcodes till quite some time to come,

but its use is surely going to proliferate as the costs come down, and number of

successful implementations go up to augment the end-users confidence. He

further adds, RFID has the potential to enable higher level of automation in

the garments industry, thereby providing a tool for increased responsiveness

required for sustained competitive advantage.

Looking Ahead



Living up to their continual emphasis on giving shoppers at Wills Lifestyle

specialty stores a truly international shopping experience, a customer facing

application has been put in place at the store front in its Metropolitan outlet.

The PoS application is expected to enable faster check-outs for the customers,

especially during end-of-season sale. In future, the ITC LRBD plans to use RFID

for more customer facing applications such as trial room experience, loyal

customer identification, smart shelves, the aim being enhanced customer delight

and in-store experience. Plans are also on anvil to enable RFID in supply chain

processes in the RDCs and stores such as physical stock count, picking, and item

search in the back room.

For ITC LRBD, implementing RFID is poised to have significant benefits in

terms of cost reduction, improved customer experience, increased efficiency, and

creating a competitive edge. Further implementation would be in strong

consideration, especially with its recent brand extension to John Players and

Miss Players, and product line extension with Fiama De Wills and Essenza De

Wills. As of now, the challenge for the lifestyle retailing division lies in the

rate at which RFID covers the expanse of its supply chain and Wills Lifestyle

Stores across the country.

Shikha Das



shikhad@cybermedia.co.in